/vr/ - Retro Games

You should try the Brave New World hackrom for FFVI. The entire combat is revamped and balanced, and the encounters are made in a way that will really bite you in the butt if you don't pay any attention.

Ogre Battle

>>5232390
>every single battle is difficult and exciting like boss fights
Do you realize how bad of an idea this is

>>5232603
I'm sure you could make a game where it works. Have way less fights, and make every one into a well designed boss fight. On that note, is there an RPG like that already? Only thing I could think of off the top of my head was the Wrestler chapter in Live-A-Live, where you select which boss you want to fight until fighting the final boss.

Most old school blobbers.

>>5232390
Nebulous Times Hence.

>>5232567
what is the consensus on ogre battle 64? I own it but I find the visuals to be hideously unattractive. I have maybe 2 hours into it and it seems very simple. am i insane?

>>5232390
SMT: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga sound like exactly what you're after.

>inb4 not retro, reeee

>>5232390
Front Mission is more or less like this but it also usually takes like an hour to finish any given battle and many can be ruined by exploits.
>>5232713
Ogre Battle and OB64 can be played in a manner that makes them seem simple but it will inevitably come back to bite you because the game is consistently complex when you investigate the actual systems, and in the case of the latter about 10 missions in you will realize that you aren't fighting poor peasant revolutionaries anymore and your enemy now has the capacity to spam items in between battles and set up flying units for ambushes and swarm tactics.

Then the demons show up.

Some games that are never not hard would be Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume (pick the hard route and never do any sacrifices), Hoshigami (the grinding in this game will destroy your life if you choose to pursue it), and I guess pretty much any Wizardry or SaGa or Fire Emblem or SMT game.

The problem with all this is that after getting a few under your belt even games like SMT Nocturne or Persona 5 on absolute madman difficulty end up being not hard enough.

at that point, your only option left is REAL ROGUELIKES, a point from which there is no return

>>5232756
>Front Mission
FM 1 and 2 are like this, FM3 went full casual >tfw no GF >Attack mode.

>>5232609
>On that note, is there an RPG like that already?
Arguably OP's picture, Final Fantasy Tactics; not every fight is a literal boss fight, but they're designed and tougher than your average JRPG battle, especially if you never try to get into random battles at all and stick to the story.

>>5232390
>>5232603

Not retro, but Etrian Odyssey does this.

>>5232713
You're insane.

>>5232797
FFT is easy, but 1.3 is challenging.

Fire Emblem - Geneology of the Holy Wars? As I recall, you have to make every move perfectly. Victories are very rewarding.

>>5232609
You should play Shadow of the Colossus then.
It’s good and it’s bad so beware and it’s really empty for such an expansive game because every fight is a boss fight.

>>5232390
The Shin Megami Tensei serie.

>>5232713
SNES incarnation is superior

>>5232921
There's a lot of bullshit fights in FFT on your first playthrpugh if you go in blind.

>>5232947
nope it's an easy game in an already easy series

>>5232609
Riviera the promised land

>>5232390
Shinning force 2 on hard mode

S/T-RPGs

>>5232756
> Fire Emblem or SMT game

What the fuck? FE is very easy and SMT, just like almost every RPG out there, is only "hard" because of the mandatory grinding.

>>5232921
You can get on a un winable situation against wiegraf if you happen to save before it

>>5232390
Into the Breach.

Growlanser my niqqa. The trash mobs fights are few and far between and take like 2 seconds.

>>5232995
Phone users....

>>5234269
>anime posters

>>5232390
SRPGs are probably what you want. Fire Emblem games in particular have a limited number of fights and they're all actually designed and require thought to win, there are no random battles or trash mobs.

>>5234281
>angry cat posters

>>5232390
First two Etrian Odyssey games. FOEs are exactly what you're looking for.

>>5232390
Try the Hell hack for Phantasy Star 4. If you're a serious masochist, try the Purgatory hack (which kinda goes into unfun territory).

>>5232390
Tales of Maj'Eyal in harder difficulties.
Some rare enemies in normal can still kick as much ass as bosses if you're unlucky.

>>5232995
I still remember getting creamed in Dorter on my first playthrough. Those archers can really kick your ass first time through.

Also, obligatory Wiegraf meme.

>>5234785
>I still remember getting creamed in Dorter on my first playthrough
Everyone gets creamed by Dorter, it's the "You have jobs, fucking use them" level.

>>5234269
Autism

>>5234791
Jobs help less than moving the right way, at the right time. Or at least, that's my experience.

>>5234645
>Spongebob posters

>>5234852
>worst girl posters

>>5234859
>trap posters

>>5234891
>frogposters

>>5234785
>>5234791
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I actually dropped the game the first time because I lost interest after replaying that fight several times. I eventually just leveled to 4-5 and smoked those black mages first.

>>5234896
>/tv/ posters

>>5234281
>strategically placed cats

>>5232390
I don't know what everybody elses opinion is on this one, but I found FF2(4JP) on the Snes to be like this. In the second half of the game if I didn't pay attention I would get steamrolled by certain enemies and I had to make sure my mages were casting buffs on me and slowdowns on the enemies and using specific elementals to do damage. I was really happy with the game (I played it for the first time last year and beat it) and I love playing older RPG/JRPG turn based games and I know the frustration of just spamming A and never using spells because they don't hurt bosses and are a waste of time on mobs.

I'm also currently playing Tales of Phantasia and it uses a real time battle system which is pretty cool and again you need to pay attention and pick your targets wisely.

>>5234914
>San Andreas posters

>>5232390
"Vagrant story".

>>5232603
why shouldn't the entire game be difficult and exciting lol. you memed yourself into liking a dumb 99% busywork genre.

>>5232870
>>5234663
good suggestion

a game with mobs that are so much harder than the actual bosses that finishing the game might not be worth the PTSD

>>5232390
>JRPG bosses
>exciting
Why are weebs so easily impressed? Is it the feminine brain structure or just low IQ?

>>5238156
seething

>>5232390
Dungeon Master.

>>5236815
>Varg posters

>>5238156
They're trump-voting jarpig playing niggers, no better than the scum in my boots.

>>5238156
Fir the same reason not everyone needs methamphetamine to know a good rush.

t. meth user

>>5238058
>Doesn't understand pacing
>Doesn't realize that nothing is exciting if everything is equal
lol indeed.

>>5238058
>>5232390
Have you thought about trying Roguelikes out? They sure sound like a good fit for you.

>>5238494
I enjoy games with a high consistent challenge...

>>5238428
>ISHYGDDT posters

>>5238573
>Roguelikes
I mean, as much as I enjoy roguelikes they relate to the OP's question like this:

>walk into trash mob until it dies
>walk into trash mob until it dies
>walk into trash mob until it dies
>walk into trash mob until it dies
>walk into trash mob until it dies
>walk into tough mob until you die
>oh whoops I didn't notice that letter was uppercase or a different shade so i was holding the arrow down
>sure wish i had been tapping it instead so i could have used a healing item

at least in Ys the combat consisted of walking at things off-center so there was some nuance to the "combat system"

...
actually if you like the positional element of roguelikes which I am pretending doesn't exist in this post, you should check out the D.R.O.D. series

>>5232718
>buff debuff to win
how exciting, and different from the average JRPG

>>5238908
Weaknesses matter a lot more too. Not all that different than the average JRPG, but it means you need to prepare more for battles. And fusing new demons to prepare is fun, so it works out well.

>>5232390
>I'm tired of mashing A to clear away trash mobs.
That's how jrpgs work, the reason why they are so popular. Maybe you prefer trpgs?

>>5239225
This is supposed to have an Ancient Greek theme and it looks exactly like every Medieval Fantasy Jarpig. These games all look the fucking same.

>>5232390
Hacks/patches help...
I'm playing through GalenMyra's FF7 Hard Type (beta 16) atm and it's a damn good improvement so far - although the game is inherently very easy/simple (e.g. 3 player parties) so it can't work miracles.

You think you want this but you really don't.

>>5238604
>oh whoops I didn't notice that letter was uppercase or a different shade so i was holding the arrow down
>sure wish i had been tapping it instead so i could have used a healing item

All you're saying is you suck and don't pay attention. Also I don't believe you like them.

>>5239327
>all I'm saying is you're correct

>>5239327
I don't think you really got what I was saying but I didn't wanna go overboard qualifying things for a silly post so i knew that would be a risk.

>>5239402
I'm not looking for a fight either. OP was looking for games where you can't just blindly walk into trash mobs forever and win. By the sounds of it we both agree Roguelikes fit that bill. You described how playing carelessly will get you killed, I just found it a little funny that your tone implied that was a bad thing.

>>5239225
Where did you get these superb 4X4 pics of various JRPGs?

>>5232390
Shining Force III, but that's a tactical RPG where every battle is a boss fight. Also most Shining the Holy Ark random encounters in later dungeons are long and challenging, and the game requires careful resource management, although that's only the case if you don't grind to overlevel yourself.

>>5232528
That mod would have been at least OK if they just stuck to only modding the gameplay, and not ruining the dialogue with their own brand of humor, making the translation a horrible amalgam of Woolsey and their own opinions on how a translation should be.

>>5238494
>Doesn't realize that nothing is exciting if everything is equal
yes, most of the rest of our life is the boring part, so we go to video games for the excitement. a game should just be tons of excitement nonstop. why else play the damn thing

>>5232609
Lost Odyssey

>>5240168
Not him but most of my life is hectic and stressful. I play games to relax and unwind.

>>5232390
Play another genre. As long as the genre is driven by sales made by storyfags the gameplay will take a nose dive at best halfway through.

>>5232995
I mistook the square icon at the end of his sentence for a cup of coffee that Elmdore's avatar was holding.

>>5238058
>why shouldn't the entire game be difficult and exciting lol.
any halfway decently designed game with a complex system (like an RPG) gives you opportunities to experiment with the system in situations where the challenge is more moderate and the stakes are lower.

>>5232390
Roguelike

>>5239227
Honestly I don't see anything medieval about it like a castle or a church. But then again you're the buttmad assretarded 'jarpig' poster.

>>5232390
Most games have mods/hacks that enable this kind of difficulty. Just check romhacking.net

FF7: New Threat is the greatest game of all time

100% serious

>>5238580
>Shitposters

Might and Magic 2 has a decent level of difficulty. Most RPGs can be made more difficult by trying to stay low level.

>>5232870
Etrian Odyssey has plenty of trash mobs and button mashing

>>5242524
What's it change?

>>5243137
Your limit gauge is filled based on how hard the shump fags are raging on /vr/ that day

>>5242408
you're supposed to experiment and fail until you win

It's not /vr/ but Epic Battle Fantasy 5 is like this. Every mob encounter (past the tutorial) feels like a boss encounter and takes strategy/time to get through. Most don't respawn, either, and all are visible on the maps so there's no random encounter spam. It's like beating bosses one by one while moving on. It's probably the most fun I've ever had with RPG combat because of this. I literally never used default attacks after the beginning of the game because using skills properly every turn was absolutely essential to victory. Be sure to out the difficulty to Epic mode to ensure maximum strategy is necessary to win.

>>5243207
goty

>>5232390
Not retro but Inazuma Eleven

strategy RPG but real time instead of turn based
large party sizes for your guys and the enemy too
characters need to be individually controlled and switched between on the fly
large combat area where unit positioning is vital to success
over 100 characters to find, many require persuasion/sidequests to join
every battle has a time limit, win fast or game over
each character has an elemental attunement that affects special moves, just like pokemon
combination techniques like in Chrono Trigger
unique combat system that focuses on gaining control of a mystical orb instead of reducing hit points to zero
the tide of battle can easily be turned against you just as you are about to win
it is literally impossible to mash A to win
every enemy encounter is against highly motivated humans, no killing rats in tavern basements

>>5243415
Sounds interesting.
Is it possible to respec your build if you make the wrong choices? Or would you need to follow a guide to ensure that you don't eff up your build?

>>5232947
Nah, your starter units are pretty OP, including Sigurd himself. Along with the save feature and plenty of room to maneuver it in't a particularly hard game. FE6 is somewhat like that, and 14 on hard mode and higher sometimes has only one or two real ways to beat the map unless you're lucky or extremely creative.

>>5232947
Nah, your starter units are pretty OP, including Sigurd himself. Along with the save feature and plenty of room to maneuver it in't a particularly hard game. Victories do feel rewarding though, probably because of the long as fuck chapters. I guess in that sense it feels like you're dealing with one big problem at a time? And the battlefield changes over time too- a whole new army of guys come at you, while a group of bandits take advantage of the situation, a different army shows up to help you- so it is a pretty exciting game despite the lack of much difficulty.
FE6 is more like what you describe since it isn't the most forgiving game but it's not the hardest. Now 14 on hard mode and higher, sometimes there'll only be one or two real ways to beat the map unless you're lucky or extremely creative and Conquest especially is hard as fuck.

>>5242392
You motherfucker

>>5232390
Not Retro but Gladius

>>5238494
Pacing only applies to storytelling. Nowadays a lot of people think that games need to feel like stories more so than, you know, games. Can you imagine if they simplified the rules of chess or backgammon for the sake of "pacing"?

>>5238604
Sounds like you aren't playing good roguelikes. Or are particularly good at roguelikes. Play Adom.

>>5232528
I played through it once a couple of years ago, and while it was kind of tedious at times I did enjoy it overall besides the translation and them changing things to make Celes the most prominent character and most powerful.

I tried to play through it again on the latest version a couple of months ago, and I just couldn't go through it a second time. You use the wrong rage or steal from the wrong enemy, and you get party wiped by their hard counter. Just became too much for a second playthrough.

>>5232390
I felt like the first Romancing SaGa had more challenging mobs than the average JRPG, but I haven't really played it a lot. Following this thread.

>>5242408
Any halfway decently designed game should provide an actual challenge.

>>5243415
Quit shilling your flash garbage on 4chan, you fucking failure.

>>5232779
Thankfully 4 went back to an actual decent combat system.
1 was pretty basic too, it essentially just boiled down to spamming rockets and dual gatlings, then throwing acid and stun grenades at anything you couldn't kill.

>>5233981
>Wiegraf
>unwinnable
Yeah, if you suck

>>5246538
>ADOM
>good
>anywhere near balanced
>even difficult
Fuck off Biskup
Archer is so fucking overpowered it's not even funny.

>>5232390
>Labyrinth of Touhou 2
Pick normal difficulty (hard isn't harder, it's less fun), run from random encounters (there's no penalty). If you're into challenging jrpgs than this is it.

>Gungir
It's not super challenging at every stage, but there aren't any easy levels either. Skip all story for a super tight srpg with tons of mechanics. Really fun.

>Wild arms XF
"every single battle is difficult" is true for this game. There's no need to grind, it's only strategy and how you build your units. It feels like FFT turned into an SRPG puzzle. It could have been a perfect game, but the difficult leads to many retries, which leads to a lot of tinkering with the builds, which completely ruined the game for me since I was constantly stuck in menus reequipping items. I wish someone would remake the game and remove items entirely. If you decide to try it than skip all story.

>>5246830
>Touhou
No.

>>5246845
You can ignore the weeb stuff. I didn't read anything that wasn't about gameplay.

jagged alliance 2 on expert/insane difficulty

>>5246820
Not him but the problem with roguelikes now is no one even tries them without reading every spoiler they can find.

>>5233025
>>5245504
FE4 does not give a whole lot of leeway to letting up your attention or lazily entering moves, if you want to preserve every unit and save every village. Therefore, it fits OP's request as to a game where you can't simply press A(ttack), since your units can be easily overwhelmed.

I can't say I found it easy. I'm curious to know what's incorrect about my strategy. Might start a new thread. I remember having to meticulously count tiles, carefully arrange units in walls or encirclements of strong units around weaker units, constantly haul ass in order to save the towns, etc.

>>5239616

Dual Orb II (SNES)

from the translator:
The game is HARD! When I say hard, I mean HARD! You will be begging for mercy from the bosses later in the game. The first half isn't that bad, it's the second half that'll get ya.

>>5232390
In my opinion you're missing the fun of an RPG. This isn't meant to be offensive, but what you really want is a level up button, but a cap on levels so you can't be over leveled, and an ability to just walk through the area directly to the boss.

There really isn't any problem with this, but you're missing the point of the grind. In older games you weren't going to necessarily have a map or the ability to "know" where to go. So you had to explore a lot. The exploration part helped with the grind. The reason the grind is so painful is because you already know where you need to go and the trash mobs are just "in the way" as opposed to blocking a place you've never explored.

>>5248782
No. Grinding was NEVER good. This is why SRPGs will forever be superior.

>>5239428
>you can't just blindly walk into trash mobs forever and win.
Can you name a game that does that? I'm legitimately curious because unless you have a strategy guide you're not going to know what mobs spawn where, which is why there is always a risk to it. Even games like DQIII have issues where someone can die because they didn't run. I'm just legit confused on OP's complaint because there is so much nuance to the game design of having trashing mobs that it's hard not to see.

Also to give a legit answer - if you want to be owned by trash mobs >>5232390 Play this game Kalin no Tsurugi or Shinsenden. Shinsenden sucks ass but it sounds like what you want because you have a high risk of dying because mob damage scales. Kalin no Tsurugi is a made for NES Ys clone, but if you get cornered by 2 mobs at once you have a chance to get fucked if you aren't thinking about what items to get you out. If you get cornered by 3 at a time you are fucked because you can't change items.

>>5248753
Where do you get these beautiful miniscreenshot compilations?

>>5248786
>grinding was never good
But why? The inclusion of grinding includes at least 1 fun game loop into any game it is apart of, and it also includes 2 more fun game loops into most RPGs. The only genre of RPG that only gets the 1 fun game loop is an MMORPG because they're by design to go to section do quest grind mobs go to next section. Most RPGs don't follow that design.

>>5248794
>Can you name a game that does that?

All the Final Fantasies except VIII, or I doing a solo theif run come to mind.

>>5249056
FF Doesn't do that though. In fact FFII comes to mind as an example of the worst type of grinding, which doesn't involve trash mobs. Can you name a specific instance of Final Fantasy that you believe has it and explain how it has that. I've only played up to X until I started going back in time with the vidya that I play.

>>5249134
In FF1 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial.

In FF2 you can grind on anything including your own party members infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial. This is a rare case where it's fuck upable, but that would be hard if you still just fought trash mobs forever.

In FF3 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial. The end dungeon is still a chore but you can easily out level it till it's easy.

In FF4 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial.

In FF5 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial.

In FF6 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial.

In FF7 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial.

In FF8 you could actually grind forever, never junction or draw magic and end up making everything brutally hard. Kinda neat.

In FF9 you can grind on anything infinitely until everything new you encounter is trivial.

I haven't played past that.

It's actually hard to think of examples of JRPGs that have level caps low enough that there's still some challenge after maxing them. Phantasy Star 1 isn't a cake walk at least.

>>5248739
>preserve every unit and save every village
well shit there you go. I guess if OP wants to play that way it's definitely a challenge, especially trying to save all the villages.
I'd imagine you might have to start maps over a few times because a save isn't far back enough to be in the ideal position or something though, and that might cancel out the whole "boring battles" complaint out of sheer time loss.

>>5246550
Sure, but that doesn't mean it should be 100% challenging 100% of the time.

That would get old really fast

>>5249153
In Chrono Cross you couldn't generally grind your way past bosses since you only got major stat ups when you defeat bosses. So aside from getting better gear and elements, there isn't much you can do to make your situation better for any given boss aside from changing your set up.

Though most of the game wasn't really that hard. I'd say what's his face on the isle of the damned and Miguel were the only hard bosses that had no cheese method since bosses like Dario and FATE could be cheesed with the black plate.

>>5248998
Grinding isn't fun unless the game is built around the grind.
Grinding in Monster Hunter is fun.
Grinding in final fantasy is tedious button mashing.

Any time you have grinding that isn't somehow engaging or the "point", generally the game would be better off without it or at least a minimal amount of it.

>>5232961
It's the complete opposite of what OP is looking for.
The game actually encourages to activate auto fight for everything but boss fights.

>>5232390
try wrpgs, in particular
Icewind Dale 1/2
Wizardry 8

>>5248875
I use imagemagick.